Hello Ya’ll!

I’m coming out of the woodwork to announce a new game from Sokay, Cheddar Beach: Episode 0. In a strange turn of events, this new game is in the style of a visual novel. Meaning that it’s a story-based game, with a lot less interaction than an action game like Thugjacker. Cheddar Beach: Episode 0 is coming this Spring and planned for release on PC (Steam) and mobile (Android and iPhone/iPad).

I started working on Cheddar Beach about a year ago. The plan was to come up with something that I could potentially finish just by myself. For years, I’d been wanting to experiment more with telling stories in games. With each Sokay project, I’ve tended to approach the gameplay and story together. We may start with an idea sparked by the story and the world that we imagine, and sometimes we start with the gameplay first and build a story around that.

With Cheddar Beach, I wanted to figure out if we could make a game based around a story. The story is the gameplay. Could that be interesting in and of itself? Growing up, action games were just about all there was to play on the NES. The games that got more complicated than that (Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest), just weren’t for me! Mostly because they didn’t make any SENSE to me (I could barely read), but also, menus are boring! I want to control an actual character, move them around the screen and have them attack when I press a button!

Over time, I grew out of my comfort zone. Secret of Mana was an action game that introduced me to leveling and experience points. Chrono Trigger introduced me to why the story in the game can be the “icing on the cake,” and made it worth learning how to navigate a menu-based RPG battle system. Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid showed me stories that I could enjoy, without even playing the game firsthand.

Cheddar Beach is not only a new genre for us, but a new game engine. For this project I dove into the Godot Game Engine to get a feel for development with it. On my first impression, it reminded me of what it ‘felt’ like to develop games in Flash. Back then, it felt quick to jump in and experiment with ideas. The editor is lightweight and worked well across Windows and OSX platforms, so it got my attention. It’s free and the exporters for different platforms (html, Windows, iOS, Android) seemed to work well also. So I gave it a shot.

We are planning on releasing Cheddar Beach: Episode 0 in Spring 2024. It will be available on PC by way of Steam. Also, for mobile on Android and iOS.

Currently, the game is playable from start to finish, but we’re testing and polishing things. The plan is to continue development of Cheddar Beach: Episode 0 after launch to polish, add new features, and implement feedback. The goal is to keep this rolling until we can develop and release an Episode 1, which would be the “actual” start of the story.

Stay tuned!

• Cheddarbeach.com coming soon!
• Wishlist Cheddar Beach: Episode 0 on Steam!

“Time flies when you’re having fun.”

This is one of my favorite sayings simply because the cartoon 2 Stupid Dogs made an entire episode based on it. And I found it quite funny. It still sticks with me today! It’s the only explanation I have for the sudden realization of a passing of time.

My last post on the blog was 6 years ago, practically to the day. This was shortly after the release of Raybeem, our VR music visualizer. I remember feeling worn out after that project and not having a clear direction of where to take it beyond its initial release.

The last post was Feb 2018, and a few months later in May, we presented Raybeem at the VRLA convention at the Los Angeles convention center. I was working on a VR project for Amazon at that time so it’s all a bit blurry to me now. We had a great showing at the convention but I felt a bit of frustration in continuing VR development because of how challenging that project was.

The blog has turned into one of those things that “I’ll get to later.” Initially, I wanted to update the WordPress theme to work on mobile better. I had some new ideas for how I wanted to organize the blog. Then it became maintenance issues, how do I even login to this thing? Then a site migration forced me to finally get around to updating stuff but I didn’t know what to say.

We’ve got a new game coming out soon so I waited just about as long as I could before I had to face this ‘dragon.’ So I’m posting something to get past my initial restraint. I can’t figure out how to center the images in this post! But I’ll worry about it another day!

Our new project, Cheddar Beach, is NOT VR. It’s not even Unity, but it’s a game at least! A large part of Sokay is the spirit of breaking new ground, at least for us individually. Each game or application has been unlike the one before it. This one is a story-based visual novel game, but it’s developed almost entirely by myself! Me, Bryson! So that’s a common thread.

This is a project where I forced myself out of my comfort zone to take care of all of the in-game artwork. I typically avoid the character stuff and Ricky draws it. This time Ricky has got my back by helping out with character designs though!

I’m looking forward to sharing more!

Nice to see you!

Peace!

-Bryson